


While We Spoke of Many Things

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cam boy!Lucien, Eating Disorders, Falling in Friendship, M/M, Mental Illness, PTSD, Support Systems, Veteran!Cassian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-20 23:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10672776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: Cassian and Lucien were never meant to be friends, it just sort of happened. And it works - it shouldn’t, but it does, for they are both true prodigies in not talking about what lies beneath the surface. It’s a delicate, healing thing - and then it starts to fracture.





	1. There Was A Boy

In all honesty, Cassian doesn’t really know Lucien. He’s a friend of a friend’s girlfriend, which is as tentative a connection as it sounds. He knows the man by name and face, although if you ask, even those details are fuzzy. Cass has no real opinion on the man, other than vague antipathy for how he’s heard he let some blonde asshole abuse Feyre, even if she does insist it’s not his fault.

So it’s kind of weird and very awkward when they start running into each other every morning at the gym, and then again later at the recently renovated health cafe next door. Turns out Cass gets his protein shake smoothie from the same place Lucien buys his weird green juice shit, and since it would be awkward to do otherwise, they sit and drink their purchases together. Sure, that’s awkward too, but at least juice is quick to drink. They never have to make stilted small talk for more than five minutes or so.

Until Lucien passes out.

He’s swaying slightly in the queue, and then as the barista repeatedly asks him his order, he plummets. Cassian functions on automatic, military training kicking in. He dives in, airways, breathing, circulation. Lucien comes to a moment later, cradled in his arms, seeing such panic in his eyes that they can never really just be awkward acquaintances again. Neither of them really knows what it means or why it’s there but it’s _something_ and all of a sudden they have an incident to laugh and joke about. Their awkward silences are killed stone dead.

After his dramatics, Lucien is forced to sit and eat breakfast in Cassian’s apartment, because the health cafe insists on only serving fucked up vegan, gluten-free bollocks and Cassian wants bacon god dammit.

“I am not a child,” Lucien says coldly, the first time Cassian drags him out with his foul green juice in hand, insisting they return to his humble abode for some proper food. “I can feed myself.”

“I don’t care. I know how much eating disorders can fuck a person up, so I’m not just going to watch your skinny ass pass out all over the place.”

Rather than thank him for the concern, Lucien just quirks an eyebrow and looks Cassian up and down very pointedly. True, he is huge, with enough muscle for two men and a stomach earned from frequent nights of 3am drunk McDonald's, but it’s not like that disproves anything, so he gives the judgemental bastard the finger. “My best friend’s mom, you dick.  I used to crash at their place, so I got a front row seat to watching it kill her.” He grins to lighten the mood and claps the redhead on the back. “Now come repay my oversharing by letting me poison you, yeah?”

Maybe his words inspired a mental revolution in Lucien, maybe the twiglet just hated the vegan food too, but when they got back to Cassian’s kitchen his guest ate twice as much as he did, which is saying something.  He never again puts up a protest to their daily breakfast date either, although he still refuses to eat ice cream for breakfast. “Oh my god, you are an actual infant,” he says when he watches Cassian spoon the Smarties ice cream out of the tub with a tablespoon.

“Don’t be jealous just because I’m living the dream life.”

And for a while, it’s this blissful kind of equilibrium. They don’t speak at the gym other than a brief wave of hello. Lucien is one of those freakishly flexible fuckers who attends yoga classes and occasionally lifts a weight or two, but never, ever goes near the heavy weights section that Cassian pretty much lives in. “My tiny twiglet child,” Cassian says, wrapping his hands around Lucien’s arms, his fingers able to circle their width and touch, “don’t you want to get jacked?”

“Ew, god no.” Lucien shivers. “That would so not go over well with my job.”

This Cassian dismisses as mildly interesting trivia; he assumes Lucien is a model or something, for he’s good looking enough for it, in a very sharp, weird-but-pretty looking way, his face angular with exaggerated featureslike those eerie, supernatural types in films. When it comes to men, Cass has always more been into the average joe kind of guys, but it isn’t like that with Lucien.

Sure, he knows Lucien is at least bisexual, if not gay, even if they’ve never said a word about it between them. And even though he is very bisexual and _very_ into having lots of sex, he’s never once thought of Lucien in that way. Something about the way he carries himself is so cold, so closed off, that Cassian knows that there is no chance for him there. Something, though he has no idea what, has cut Lucien off from the rest of the world of romance and sex. Honestly, it is a miracle that they managed to come together in friendship.

It’s a strange kind of friendship, especially as it begins to leak outside of their gym and breakfast dates. Cassian isn’t allowed to drive, and when Lucien realises that he can’t see for shit, he forcibly escorts him into the next city over to go and visit an opticians. After that, it’s easy to ask for favours, like if he can be dropped at the train station or if he can hitch a lift out to the local moors, and soon it makes sense for Lucien to come out on the hikes with him because he offers and there’s nothing better to do.

“Why don’t you learn to drive, now that you can actually fucking see?” Lucien suggests when they’re stuck in traffic, on the way to go visit this cute little famous tea shop outside of the city, down by the quay.

“I know how to drive,” Cass informs him absently, distracted. He’s busy pulling faces at the car resting next to them, sending the little kids in the backseat into hysterics. “Just not allowed to. Medical reasons and shit.”

“Epileptic?” Lucien guesses.

“Nah. PTSD.”

And they don’t talk about _it_. They’re very good at not talking about it, whatever it may be. Maybe it’s because they both have lots of ‘ _it_ ’s, maybe it’s just because really, they don’t actually know each other all that well. Cassian has learned to just purse his lips and bite down on his tongue when Lucien shows up to the gym with fresh bruises purpling his skin like night flowers, and he tries his best not to show it when he can hear Lucien vomiting in the bathroom. It’s all fine. He feeds him eggs and porridge in the morning and plugs him with enough hot chocolate that surely he can’t throw it all up.

He would protest, would break down the door and demand to know what the fuck Lucien thinks he’s doing, but for all his smiles and jokes, he gets it. If he says something, he knows that Lucien can counter just as easily.

After all, he never comments when Cassian’s place is filled with ten empty pizza boxes that were not there yesterday, nor does Lucien question him when he vanishes for a week. Instead he comes over, and before breakfast he helps Cassian pick up the beer cans and throw the mouldy, untouched food out in the dumpster. When Cassian has to run out of that one movie, he follows after and suggests they go see the Disney film that starts in ten minutes instead. And they do not talk about it.

Whilst it lasts, he thinks it’s perfect. And it stays like that for so long, most of a year in fact, so long that Cassian thinks that this is it, this is going to be their eternal rapport.

And then it breaks.

*

It’s one of his disappearing weeks, the ones they don’t talk about. Day four. He’s on the same sofa he has not moved from in two days, a blanket stained with spilt beer and chinese food pulled up over his head and wrapped over the back of his laptop, creating a cosy little cave of darkness, lit solely by the screen’s backlight.

He’s been doing the same thing for three hours: browsing through endless porn sites in search for the most disturbing, horrific thing he can find. He’s already watched all the double, triple penetrations he can find, the fucked up kink shit, all the stuff that on his good days he’d fight to have taken down. He’s just so… numb. He needs something, anything, to kick him out of the bottomless vacuum he’s stuck in. But nothing works. He’s in snuff film territory, he is watching a girl get throttled. Nothing. He cannot bring himself to care.

Back clicking from the porn tunnel he’s dug himself into, he decides to try a different tact. He thinks he wants something live, something that can react in real time so he doesn’t have to feel so disconnected from all this shit.

Cam-girls, cam-boys. There are a thousand to choose from, every look, aesthetic, shape, and size to choose from. Does he want the punky looking chick with the nose piercing, the man with the build of a swimsuit model? Does he really want any of these people? What will reaching out to them really accomplish? ~~Why doesn’t he just kill himself already?~~

He freezes. Not because the thought catches him off guard - it’s been playing on repeat in the back of his head for twelve days now, this time around - but because he sees a familiar face. It would shock him more, were he not so numbed out, but it’s something, a modicum of surprise, of something. So against his saner, better judgement, he clicks the thumbnail.

He’s met with a registration pop-up and swears. The apathy is fading, graduating into an urgency that he faintly recognises is manic. He plugs in his proper work email, not giving a shit about spam and viruses, and waits for the registration confirmation. Clicks the link. He’s in.

“Oh hi there.” He swallows. “It’s been real quiet tonight. GoldDragon69.” He’d pulled the name off of the box of the shitty chinese takeaway lying on the floor. “Haven’t seen you on my channel before. How are you doing?”

Without any idea as to why, Cassian starts crying. Maybe it’s because Lucien has never asked him that face to face, and seeing him now shirtless, in high-definition pixels, asking him that exact question as if he’s begging for sex, maybe it drives him over the edge. Maybe it’s because everyone stopped asking him that once he came back from Afghanistan.  Not because they didn’t care. He loved his friends, and they were so, so good to him. He’d just gotten real good at smiling.

“Hey,” Lucien says, so softly Cassian is petrified he can somehow see him. “This your first time by any chance?” Wiping his eyes on the smeared blanket, Cassian types back.

Yes.

“Don’t worry so much. It’s not like they make it look in the movies.” Lucien smiles, in a way Cassian has never seen him smile. It is so loving. He’s good at this. “Just think of it as two people chatting. I… just happen to be shirtless. Of course, I can be so much more than that if you want, but that’s where additional cash gets involved.”

This is the worst idea he has ever had. Cassian is at his weakest, his most vulnerable, and he is stalking his unavailable friend online, without him knowing, and getting him to be nice to him for money. He understands so clearly in that moment how these things work. He feels like he’s falling in love.

But he’s not. He knows that he’s not. They are friends, and no way is this disaster fucking that up.

“So come tell me a bit about yourself,” Lucien says, and he’s so welcoming, so open and relaxed, the polar opposite to how he is in front of Cassian. Cass knows it’s not just him who sees that other Lucien, he’s like that with staff and strangers too. He feels like he’s fallen into an alternate reality.

He knows that he should click away. Knows this can only lead to trouble. And he has enough trouble as it is.

He looks at Lucien, that soft, half-shy smile that is just begging him to open up and pour out his heart and wallet.

He types back.


	2. A Very Strange Enchanted Boy

“How’re you holding up?” Rhys asks, leaning back against the cooker and helping herself to leftovers from a batch of chips.

“Fine,” Cass snips, not so much because he doesn’t appreciate her at least trying to ask, but more because he is trying to work. Not everyone can be an heir to an enormous fortune after all.

“Really? You being honest with me, Cass? Because you’ve refused to come out with me every time this month. I’m not blaming you I just need to know it’s not because…”

“Honestly Rhys, it’s not like that again.” It’s only a half lie. Yes, Cass has been spending most of his free time alone at home, but he’s not drinking himself unconscious or binging on takeout till he’s sick anymore. His current addiction is far more… interactive. And expensive. “I just haven’t had the cash to afford nights out is all.”

“What? You’ve been working more shifts than ever! You must be rolling in cash by now.” When Cassian doesn’t reply, Rhys just sighs. “You know I’m happy to pay for your-”

“And you know I don’t want your charity.”

Cassian hates this. Things have been fucked up between him and Rhys for a while now, because Rhys is getting better, Rhys is moving on. True, Rhys never fought on the frontlines, never saw and did the things that he did, but not so long ago they’d shared a mutual understanding of the suffering they’d emerged themselves in when they’d signed up for a war. But now Rhys is engaged, passionate about her feminist activism and vocal about her cry for change for the mental health system. She believes in things and wants to fight for change. Sometimes she’s so inspirational and fiery about it, even Cass thinks he could join her in campaigning for change.

Then he remembers how every loud noise sets his hands trembling and is reminded how they are now two very different people.

“I miss you, Cassy-poos,” Rhys says, rubbing his back as he rolls the fish fillets in breadcrumbs. He’s worked as a chef at several local restaurants, getting systematically fired from each one when he has one of his bad episodes. Now he’s had to resort to a filthy grease-diner that is the sort of thing he’d visit at 3am.

“I miss you too, Rhys. I just…” Can he tell her? She’s a very strict feminist and has very certain opinions about porn, and sure Lucien isn’t a woman and isn’t in the porn industry exactly but, well, it’s not exactly something Cassian feels proud of. “I’ve started talking to someone online.”

“Oh?”

“Not like that. They don’t even have a clue who I am. But it- it’s a good distraction.”

The shame in his voice must have been obvious, because she regards him with such pity that he thinks he might puke. He shoves the next load of breaded and battered meat into the fryer and works on dicing up a fresh batch of potatoes, trying to focus on the work rather than her and her big, sympathetic eyes. He knows he’s pathetic. He doesn’t need reminding.

“Cass,” she says softly, pausing him as he juggles three different platters. She sets them down for him and takes his hand, pulling him in for an unexpected hug. “If it works for you and helps, you know I support it. Whatever it is.” There’s such tender fondness in her voice that  he thinks she might be about to cry. Hell, he might be about to cry. He’s learned well how to overcome that by now though, forcing a grin.

“Even if it’s drowning puppies for shits and giggles?”

Shoving him off, she snickers and whacks him on the arm. “Fuck off, psycho.”

“It’s fine, it’s not that. You see, I’ve started eating people. Cheeky Nandos trips just don’t interest me anymore. Chicken is so… mediocre compared to sweet, sweet human flesh.”

“Is that what this place serves? I did wonder. It all looks like the same suspicious non-meat genetic mutant shit to me.”

Even Cass is laughing now, in spite of himself. For all his bitterness, he really does adore Rhys, her silver tongue and quick wit. “Honestly. I welcome you here, to my place of work, just to have you call into question our integrity.” He can’t quite keep up the theatrical wounded act as he pulls out the next packet of questionable ‘chicken’ that smells faintly of sewage. “Working here might actually be good for me. It’s putting me off fast food at least.”

“You do look skinnier,” Rhys concedes with a shrug, scrunching her nose up at the foul smell.

They both lounge in silence for a while, Cass having to focus to keep up with the busy hour as it hits the peak for lunch, Rhys just hanging around and texting as she waits for Feyre’s shift at the morgue to be over. Her fiance, Feyre, though a fantastic artist, has yet to be able to make a living from selling paintings alone, and thus freelances as a makeup artist for the dead, which Rhys seems to think is _incredibly_ sexy. Cass worries she’s even kinkier than he is, and possibly not in a good way.

“So… Az said you’ve been hanging out with Lucien a lot lately,” Rhys says when the workload has finally died down, and Feyre has stopped texting her back. “I didn’t think you even knew him? We’ve never introduced you two, have we?” Cass prays she doesn’t notice as his hands freeze at the mention of that name, or how his cheeks flush and he feels a deep, awful arousal in the pit of his stomach, clenching his thighs.

“We met at the gym a lot and then… I don’t know, it just made sense to help each other out. Friend of a friend and all that.” He tries to shrug in a way that he hopes does not betray how deeply he’s fallen into the abyss of the redhead. “He’s kind of a bitch but we get on really well. I guess he’s pretty decent once you get past the Ice Queen act.”  

“You didn’t tell me you’d met him. How long have you guys been mates?”

“About a year now.”

There’s quiet. “A _year?_ You didn’t- How did I not know that you two have been friends for a year?”

“I dunno.” Cass shrugs, really wishing he could think of a way to change the topic but all his brain can fixate on right now is Lucien, how oddly captivating he is, how he’s a mystery within a mystery, wrapped up in barbed wire and a webcam. “I guess you’ve been so busy with Feyre, we’ve had so much to catch up on when we meet up that I never thought to tell you about that. It’s not like we’d ever meet up as a trio.”

Rhys is staring at her phone, pale. Cassian starts to move towards her, to assure her it doesn’t matter, but she beats him to speaking. “You used to tell me everything. Every nightmare you had. Which people smiled at you in the street. When a movie you liked was on tv.” When she looks up at him, her eyes are wet with tears and dear god that expression might just break him in half. She is heartbroken, and he feels it’s all his fault. “Cass. Have I been a bad friend?”

Normally, he would automatically launch into telling her no, no, over and over again but there is a dead weight inside of him that stops his body from lurching towards her and embracing his best friend. He’s just so numb lately. It’s getting harder and harder to find the effort to lie.

And that’s answer enough. Rhys looks down at her knees, swallowing. “Oh my god Cass. I’m sorry. I just-” She clenches her hands into fists by her sides, bending over. “I can’t live back there. I can’t keep thinking about it, else I’d get stuck.” The unspoken _like you_ fractures something delicate Cassian didn’t know he still had. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to be there for you.”

“It’s not your fault. You looked after you, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.” Washing up his hands, he takes off his grease stained apron and walks over to her, standing before her. “I’m trying to sort my shit out, Rhys. Honest. And this thing- this person… It’s fucked up, I’m not going to lie. Really fucked up. But… it’s the first time since coming back that I’ve really felt something more than…” More than terror. More than detachment. More than feeling like he left part of himself back across the ocean, trapped in a bombsite somewhere. “I’m going to get better.”

Meeting his gaze, Rhys studies him for a moment before leaning forward and cupping his cheek, fixing him there with her eyes. “You will, Cass. And I’ll try to be here for you now, when you need me. More than before. Promise. Just promise me you’ll keep trying too.”

“Promise.”

“So you’ll come out with us tonight? Mor got a promotion so we thought we’d go bowling to celebrate.”

His stomach automatically clenches with anxiety, his mind racing to anticipate all that could go wrong. The sound of pins knocking to the floor, the shouting and cursing, the way Mor and Az and Amren will look at him and _see_ that something is missing. But he’s going to keep trying. “Sure,” he agrees with a nod. He pecks Rhys chastely on the cheek, urging his brain to shut the fuck up. “I’ll meet you guys there. The one in town, right?”

“Yeah, the usual.”

Rhys slips off of the work surface and dusts her black, designer dress down to get rid of the flour that’s clouded upon it, seemingly unconcerned about the expense. She nods for a minute, unsure of how to proceed, before grinning, really, properly grinning. She sneaks in another hug from the back whilst he’s trying to stack the washed plates, humming to herself. “Cass. I’m so proud of you. You know that right?”

For a moment, Cass really does know that, and it leaves his muscles warm and relaxed. He hugs her back. “Proud of you too, batgirl.” She snorts at the old nickname and releases him.

“See you later, Batman,” she calls as she slips out of the back exit with a wave and a smile back at him. And he gets one of those rare feelings of complete normalcy, like maybe it’s all fine now and he’s _fixed_.

Yet it vanishes the second he catches sight of them at the bowling alley.     

The usual squad is there. Rhys, who’s swapped out her black flour-coated dress for a preppy little cocktail number, has her arm wrapped around the waist of a laughing Feyre, who looks quite content in her dungarees overalls that she works in, and that stink of formaldehyde, though she likes to whisper ominously ‘ _they smell of deaaad people!_ ’. Azriel and Mor, two opposites in appearance, one fair and one dark, lounge together on the bench the group has booked. She flicks through a copy of _Ritas_ , the fashion magazine she now edits, whilst he watches her over shoulder, his head resting gently atop it.   

Even Amren has deemed the occasion worthy of making an appearance during the daylight hours. Ever the personal rockstar, she is leaning against a candy dispenser in a huge, oversized leather jacket, a slashed shirt, and form hugging black jeans because she doesn’t care that neanderthals can see her junk through the tight fabric, it just makes it easier to hunt them down and punch them. Given how she isn’t normally accustomed to the early hour - which she insists six pm is - she wears gargantuan sunglasses that cover half her face, despite the fact that they are indoors.

Tucked into the crook of her arm is one of her girlfriends, Elain, who has lasted surprisingly long for Amren and her tendency to constantly switch up her polyamorous circle. Feyre’s sister, she shares the same bright eyes and freckled face, but is much softer and plumper, and is constantly smiling and seems to dress solely in sundresses, even in the dead of winter. Cassian finds her delightful to be around, although he doubts they could ever really be close, for she doesn’t seem the type to be able to linger in the darkness. And yet here she is with Amren.

The world is a strange place. And a cruel one, judging by the final member of the pack gathered there today.

Chatting with a lazy smirk to Feyre, Lucien bats a bowling ball back and forth between his hands. He is as pale and twiglet-like as ever, dressed like the most stereotypical gayest hipster, or hippest gay known to earth in a patterned shirt, suspenders, and high-waisted skinny jeans with big, knock-off doc martens. Cassian, who remembers how he used to laugh and dismiss him, wishes he could go back to seeing him solely as a friend. Now, he cannot help but be infatuated.

Maybe he watched Lucien twerk his ass at a webcam one too many times, but now he can never go back to not thinking of him in the context of sex. And honestly, the redhead is hot. Really fucking hot, especially when he’s teasing an audience in that low, mocking growl of his. The fact that it is so sick and wrong that he is internet stalking his own friend’s cam shows only drags Cassian in deeper. Hence why he’s been trying to avoid the actual, real life man lately.

Too late. Lucien catches sight of him, stops, and then purposefully looks away, engaging Elain in banal conversation. _Fuck this is going to be awful_.

“Cass!” Rhys yells, waving him over with gross enthusiasm, in a way that just screams _hey my friend who never gets out the house!_ to everyone around them. “You came! Come on, I want you on my team. Feyre’s betting me twenty bucks I can’t kick her and Mor’s ass.”

“You can’t,” Mor drawls, closing up the magazine, standing, and stretching. “You throw like an infant.”

The group continues to bitch back and forth playful gips at one another, but all Cassian has eyes and ears for as he approaches is Lucien. The redhead might like to think he is the Bitch Queen, but he sucks at giving people the cold shoulder, judging by how every two seconds he glances back over Cass’s way. Cass can’t help smiling. He’s missed him.

“We’ve missed you, dummy,” Mor says, catching him off guard by clapping him on the shoulder. At her side, Azriel nods, silently analysing Cassian to work out what state he is in. He returns the look with a small, reassuring smile for his friend’s sake. He’s worried them all enough by now.

“Yeah well, been busy you know. Lots of video games to beat, pizza to eat, the world’s my oyster. But you!” Cassian gives her a big ol’ bear hug, thankful he’d finally managed to force himself to shower this morning. “You clearly already know all about that, don’t you. Congrats, Mor.”

“Well, you know,” Mor says, trying to seem casual though she is clearly blushing, “first the fashion industry, next the world. The usual life plan.”

As he ruffles her hair (despite her shrieking protests), Cass notices Lucien watching them, one eyebrow unconsciously quirked. Cass had never been the type to endure awkward, unspoken grudges. And all he knows to fix it is the same overzealous outgoing force that works for all the others, so he hugs him too, trying to do it in the same platonic, jovial way he had Mor, furiously plugging out thoughts of Lucien stripping naked and jerking himself off. “Sorry I’ve been AWOL with you too, Luce.”

“We all thought you’d developed a porn addiction or something,” Feyre jokes with a laugh and a grin, which stutters and vanishes rather promptly when no one else laughs, save Cass, who kind of just awkwardly chuckles.

“Cass isn’t _that_ much of a loser,” Lucien says, and with it, Cass’s limbs turn to stone. He wants to- hell, he wants to point out to all of them what Lucien does, that who is he to judge that sort of behaviour but dear god why shouldn’t he? But he relies on people with those sort of problems for income. Yet he’s the one at the other end of the screen. He has to put up with those ‘losers’ every day at work. But Cassian can’t stop it, no matter how hard he tries, and he is told by everyone again and again that he shouldn’t think of himself as a loser.

“Now that we’re done celebrating the hero returned, let’s get bowling!” Rhys declares, putting a protective arm around Cass’s waist. Feyre, who is used to this physical intimacy between the two, doesn’t bat an eye, but rather grins and grabs herself a bowl.

“Me, Mor, Elain, and Amren verses the boys and Rhys!” She says, and soon all porn talk is forgotten by the rest of them, and they’re all yelling and cheering one another on.

It’s a real struggle to get into it, mentally at least, but Cass is able to fake a smile when he needs to, and soon he is swept up in their enthusiasm. Despite Lucien’s presence, he mostly forgets the long nights of furious wanking and self-hatred, and instead roars with laughter as he gives Feyre a piggyback ride of victory around the bowling alley. It’s fun. It really is fun. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t do this more.

With their games over, they melt away from the bowling to the dumb arcade games at the back. It is genuinely touching how every one of them gives the shooters a wide berth, Mor and Az engaging in air hockey whilst Rhys and Feyre cackle over Dance Dance Revolution. Amren and Elain have disappeared into the girls’ bathroom, and _no one_ wants to be the one to bring them back.

“Hey, blockhead,” Lucien says as he passes, offering him a basketball to shoot into the little fairground style hoop. “Come win me prizes.” Though Cass might be sore on him, he’s never the kind to resist competitive temptation. He gets all three balls through the hoop, smirking as the machine prints out a reel of prize tickets. “My hero,” Lucien drawls, pushing up onto tiptoes and kissing him swift on the cheek. Maybe it’s just because he is desperately trying not to think like that, but Cass can’t help feel that something’s there, between them, making it awkward.

“Sorry about earlier by the way,” Lucien says in a purposefully dismissive tone. Man, they both really suck at being serious. “I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot.”

“What with the-”

“The loser comment, yeah. You know I don’t care what fucked up skeletons you’ve got in your closet.” He glances up at Cassian, and then turns to go and turn in the tickets for prizes. “With you, that shit doesn’t matter to me. You’re still awesome.”

He doesn’t give Cassian a chance to reply, striding off to go and claim a humongous green teddy bear. He does, however, let Cassian carry it back home for him, the rest of the group departing back to their various accommodation. At the door, he takes the bear and kisses him again, just once, on the cheek. “Thanks,” he says, and then he’s gone, vanishing indoors.

  
And Cassian is left like that, on his doorstep, so hopelessly, unhelpfully, in love.


	3. They Say He Wandered Very Far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: Suicidal Ideation

There are more good times nowadays, there really are, honest. For the first time since he came home, Cassian manages to go a whole month without bailing on work or friends. He showers consistently for two. When Lucien drags his ass to the cinema to see the new Star Wars sequel, he even manages to sit through the whole damn thing, he even laughs at Han Solo and feels so overwhelmingly happy to be able to enjoy something from his childhood that he’d thought was lost on him forever.

Sipping diet coke in the seat beside him, Lucien holds his hand whenever there’s a fight scene as he screws his his eyes tight shut and tries not to flashback. “It’s okay Cass. You’re stuck being a nerd here with me, in the cinema,” Lucien whispers to him on repeat when it gets really bad in the middle and he starts breathing real fast. When he finally relaxes, Lucien says nothing of it. Still they maintain their patented avoidance techniques.

It’s weird, how he is somehow the inverse of Rhys and the others. They are always asking him how he’s doing and what’s wrong and so forth, but during the crisis situations, they are like fish out of water, and he has no idea how to give them something to do, to let them comfort themselves by feeling like they can help. Yet Lucien knows, and knows well, just as Cassian knows without needing to be told to give him space when he starts hyperventilating in the bathroom after their trip to Pizza Hut.

But it cannot always be good times. He’s not there yet.

The relapse after bowling is hard - he has been mostly okay for three solid months, but as time slips into the month of November and the weather freezes over, so does his good mood. Locking his front door and jamming his sofa, a cupboard, and some home dumbbells in front of it isn’t enough to let him feel safe. Opening every window to the blustering chill still isn’t enough to let him feel like he can breathe. No matter how much ice cream or chocolate or pizzas (passed through the fire escape window by a confused delivery boy) he eats, he still can’t numb out the soul-deep wrenching sensation of horror.

His phone vibrates for the twelfth time as he’s emptying the contents of his medicine cabinet out onto his coffee table. “Fuck.” He only has a hundred or so pills, mostly painkillers and cold/flu syrups, along with his prescription shit. Not enough to actually guarantee a clean kill. He glances at his phone. He’s already googled how much he’d need to top himself twenty nine times on his laptop, but he still hasn’t found an actual answer, but if he picks up his phone he’ll have to read whatever has been setting it off buzzing.

‘ _Cass, it’s been two weeks now, I’m-_ ’ The preview on his lockscreen reads. Sender: Luce. Lucien has never texted him during his fail-out periods before. He unlocks the phone, and completely fails to stop himself from breaking down into ugly sobbing as he reads the missed texts.

 

_ ‘Hey Feyre wants 2 know ur sizes for ur best man suit - she’s lost her phone + flipping the fk out. Can u text me them?’ _

_ ‘Cass come on she’s actually screaming now’ _

_ ‘Ur ded 2 me’ _

_ ‘Cass? Haven’t seen u in over a week, hope Feyre didn’t kill u' _

2 Missed Calls

_ ‘Cassian? Can you please learn how to answer a phone?’ _

_ ‘CASSIAN ANSWER YOUR DAMN PHONE I AM ACTUALLY WORRIED NOW ARE YOU HAPPY?’ _

_ ‘Cassian I am about to lose my shit and u do not want me to lose my shit’ _

_ ‘Right fine’ _

_ ‘That’s it’ _

_‘Cass I’m-_ ’

 

He doesn’t get to finish reading the last message, because a furious knock on the door makes him jump so badly he drops the damn phone. “Cass!” Lucien’s voice yells from the other side of the door. “You in there?”

In all honesty, Cass plans on keeping silent and waiting for him to go away, but then he hears the sound of someone body slamming his door. The wood wobbles. “Ow, fucking christ fuck. Cass! Open the damn door.” He hesitates, earning more scolding. “Cass, I can literally smell you in there you dirty hobo fuck. Open up.” Another body slam.

Cassian has no choice now, not unless he wants to be responsible for breaking every bone in the twiglet’s body. Scrambling up, he runs over and shoves the sofa out of the way, unlocking the keychain and opening up just as Lucien readies himself for another charge.  

“Cass,” Lucien says as he releases the breath he’d been saving for his assault. His tensed body relaxes, and whatever incensed rage he’d brought to the door withers out of him with one look at Cassian. “Fuck.”

Cassian tries not to feel too self-conscious, wiping at his face with his sleeve, knowing he must look like hell, or worse. He’s not even properly dressed or undressed, one two week old sock on, tucked over his sweatpants, shirtless. A snide voice in the back of his head mocks him that yes, this is exactly the way to seduce pretty twink boys. By looking like shit.

He wishes he’d taken those pills when Lucien’s eyes soften into pity. “Don’t,” Cassian snarls, more harshly than he intended. “Don’t feel sorry for me.” Glancing up at him, Lucien stares back, as if he could find the answer in his eyes. Then he crosses his arms and sighs.

“Idiot, I don’t feel sorry for you, I feel sorry for your neighbours. I could smell this place down the hall.”

Before Cassian can tell him to go fuck himself, the redhead marches into the apartment and surveys it in one fell swoop, not so much as batting an eyelid. “You,” he barks at Cassian, before pointing a thin, pale finger to the bathroom. “Go shower. And go put on some fresh clothes, for my sakes. Spit spot.” His tone is so matronly that Cassian doesn’t think twice, just following the instructions on automatic.

And it helps. It somehow, impossibly helps. He hasn’t been able to shower in sixteen days and yet with those orders hanging over his head he steps in and melts beneath the hot water without a moment’s delay. The setting’s too high so the steady stream of water scalds his skin, but after the freezing hell of his apartment it’s kinda nice, welcome, streaking off the dirt and grime clinging to his skin. A knock on the door. “Don’t forget to wash too!”

In what feels like a whole new era, he emerges into the living space smelling like old spice and fresh clothes, adorned with a cheesy christmas sweater and a faded pair of old jeans. The apartment itself has matched his transformation. Four full bin bags reside beside his front door, but the rest of the place is spotless, save for a stray Lucien lingering at the sink, washing up the last of the dishes.

“Don’t expect me to do this again,” he says crisply, not looking up from the soap suds. “I’m not your personal maid, dumb ass.” He only looks up when Cassian fails to quip something back. The problem is, he’s too busy crying.

“Luce,” he mumbles, throat thick. An hour ago he was going to try kill himself, flawed methodology be damned. Now he just- he doesn’t know how he feels, but he’s not stuck back there anymore. As unexpectedly and nebulously as the depression had come on, it vanishes again.

“Now, don’t get all sappy on me,” Lucien says tartly, although he’s smiling a little too fondly to really mean it as he tries his hands on a dishtowel. Ignoring him, Cassian strides over to him and cups his narrow jaw in his too-large hands, holding his gaze.

“Lucien. Can I kiss you right now?”

Looking back at him, Luce’s expression is unreadable, no surprise nor blush nor anger detectable upon his features. “You know I have a boyfriend.”

“I do,” Cass said with a nod. “It’s just that right now I really owe you a thank you kiss.” He knows the second Lucien smirks that some sassy deflection is coming up.

“You think kissing you would be a reward?” Yet the sharp edge to his tease is far too soft, far too quiet. He swallows, shrugging in Cassian’s hold. “Yeah, alright. Just this once.”

Stuck in a surreal disconnect from reality, Cassian tries to drag his mind to focus on this, to feel every inch of it as real. It may be the only chance he gets to actually live in this fucked up romance of his.

He leans in, down, Lucien at least a foot shorter than him despite also being considerably tall. He presses their lips together, slow, searching, moving deeper and deeper to try and communicate just how much this unspoken camaraderie of theirs has come to mean to him. How fruitlessly he has fallen in love. How sorry he is for all he’s done.

For a brief moment, Lucien’s fingertips dust his cheekbones, ghost his jawline, and he kisses him back, half-shy and curious. But he really does have a boyfriend. He pulls back quickly, as if suddenly remembering that fact. He cannot meet Cassian’s gaze. “Thank you,” Cass says, his lips singing with the memory of the kiss. “For everything Luce.”

“Yeah, well. Just don’t do it again.”

Cassian really hopes he doesn’t mean the kiss.


	4. Very Far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for abuse + homophobic slurs

At first Cassian could handle just watching Lucien in the general chats, where nothing more than a light striptease or a bit of ass-slapping would unfurl. Then some asshole would come pay for a private chat and spirit Lucien - or ‘Foxy Boi’ as his Cam Name declared - away to the realm of pay-per-minute servers. Left alone in the waiting room, it wasn’t long before he clicked to join them. 

The first time he entered a private room under Foxy Boi’s name, he was stunned to see Lucien licking up the length of a bright pink dildo. He proceeded to perform a spectacularly complex blowjob upon the phallus. All tongue and teeth and expert deep throating, it was that image that first sent the word  _ whore _ shivering through Cassian’s mind. Naturally, he crushed the thought at once, whilst trying to ignore how hard it made his dick. 

However, those commenting seemed to agree wholeheartedly, littering the chat with ‘ _ cumslut _ ’ and ‘ _ yeah suck it u dirty little fag _ ’. Cass’s first instinct was to type back and persecute them for such hurtful language, but as Lucien giggled and muttered ‘fuck yeah I am’ he realised this was how things worked here. From the way his eyes glazed over and his dick hardened, Lucien seemed to be enjoying it even. But that was all part of the act, surely?

By now though, Cassian is desensitised to the whole thing. Moreover, he’s grown irritable with other strangers watching and interacting with Lucien. More often than not, he now spends at least an hour on exclusive chat with him, where he pays a premium price to get Lucien’s time all to himself. He is restricted to typing no longer; now he speaks with his laptop mic, using some dodgy audio altering software to transpose the pitch of his voice down a couple intervals. 

So they start spending most of their time speaking to one another, though Lucien doesn’t know that the patron who keeps booking him at night is Cassian. It’s gone too far now for him to be able to tell him. He’s dug his own grave.

“Want me to stick it up my ass?” Lucien offers with a sly smirk, waggling the dildo suggestively. 

“You know I do.”

“So predictable, GD,” he teases with another snicker, the nickname rolling off his tongue like a dirty word. GoldenDragon69 tips him 300 tokens. “Fuck me, you sure you want to pay that much?” 

“Sad isn’t it? A grown man falling in love with the whore with a golden heart.” 

Cackling, Lucien rocks back in his chair and clutches his side, sniggering. They’ve talked and interacted so much at this point that Lucien’s started relaxing around him, letting the sex-kitten persona drop every so often. Beneath isn’t his Bitch Queen armor, however, but something incredibly warm and welcoming and affectionate. Cassian wishes he could really tell him who he is, most of all then. Why does he keep this side of himself hidden in the daylight?

“Oh honey, my heart is  _ far _ from golden, trust me.” Encircling his exposed asshole with the tip of the dildo, he looks at the webcam dead on. “You know flattery won’t do shit to loosen me up.” 

Cassian isn’t sure who introduced this element into their play. He never consciously knew he’d want it, that’s for sure, and isn’t certain if Lucien just somehow knew it’d shake him to his very core, of if it’s a kink of his own that he brings to his work. The insecurity has worn off by now, however, so he doesn’t so much as stutter as he purrs, “Well get on with it then, you filthy fucking slut.” 

“Moi?” With two fingers Lucien lubes up his tight little ass, as pale and perfect as the rest of him, waxed free of hair like a child’s. He is  _ such  _ a twink.

“No.” They’ve played this scene before, and the sight smirk on his lips at the interruption is just noticeable through the distortion of the pixels. “Don’t be a pussy. You take it dry, like a good slut.” Cassian’s stomach sinks when he sees a slight frown cross that beautiful face, realising he got his line wrong. But he’s still not quite… adjusted to using  _ that _ word in particular, even if it does make his heart race and his ears burn with arousal. Swallowing, he murmurs into the mic, “Fuck yourself properly,  _ fag _ .” 

Biting down on his lower lip like a classic movie whore, Lucien removes his finger and slides in the dildo, moaning loudly and wincing at the pain. With one hand he tugs at his half hard dick, coaxing it into swelling, flushing it red with heated blood as he fucks himself with the dildo, splitting his ass open wider and wider as he rams it in deep, gasping for air as it burns across his insides. His audience is enraptured. 

Cassian cannot look away for even a moment. He stares, slack jawed, watching the pink silicone slide slick between the raw skin of Lucien’s asshole, watches how his thighs tighten and clench with each groan and whimper, listening to the kittenish cries snuffing out of his throat. “Stop crying, pussy,” he remembers to hiss, leaning in closer, gripping the keyboard. “Dirty fucking sluts like you  _ deserve _ this.”  

At that Lucien starts actually crying, his body shaking and it’s not just from the hard object shoved rough up his ass. Deep in the pit of Cassian’s stomach is something deeply uncomfortable as he watches this, feeling almost as if he is enabling something, even though he is the one paying for this and maybe it’s all just an act. Yet there is nothing play-acting about the bliss on Lucien’s transcendent expression, and as Cassian calls him a  _ dirty little fag _ over and over again his eyes glaze over, the way Cassian has seen well-practiced subs do with ease as they slip into subspace.

“The fuck are you doing?” A lower voice growls from far off in the background. Whether from surprise or something far darker, Lucien comes in volumes, crying out a cascade of swearwords as he clamps his legs tight shut and rides the dildo and the orgasm together. “Fuck.  _ Fuck. _ ”

“The hell, Lu?” The voice demands again, and into the view of the webcam strides Tamlin. 

Tamlin is about the same size as Cassian, though a leaner build, and they look somewhat similar, except Tamlin looks like a version who still has his shit together. He has beautifully combed and glossy hair combed back, a clean shaven square jaw, and a smart tailored suit marking out the planes of his muscular frame. A version of Cassian, of whom he could have been in another life. 

“You told me you had the afternoon off,” Tamlin says, placing a broad hand upon Lucien’s shoulder. In an instant, the scene has gone from a filthy sex show to a peek into tense domesticity, and Cassian feels sick. He cannot place exactly what it is about the pair’s relationship, but something in they way they touch, they way they speak - and worst of all, the way they  _ don’t _ \- that makes his skin crawl.

“GD’s my most loyal customer,” Lucien says, and the sex kitten is back, looking up imploringly at his boyfriend with a tilted head and an endearing smile. He places a pale hand upon the one gripping his shoulder. “We’re just having a bit of fun.”

“No,” Tamlin says, and even through the low resolution of the screen Cassian can see how his fingers tighten, pressing forcefully into flesh and bone. “No, this isn’t fun. I’m fun.” There is nothing ‘fun’ about his voice, nothing warm or light or loving. This is not what Cassian paid for, and yet he cannot avert his gaze. 

“Tamtam, don’t be like that,” Lucien flirts, soft and teasing though his tiny slip of a body has frozen rigid. He pulls his boyfriend closer, slipping an arm around his waist and stroking up underneath his shirt along the fuzz of hair snaking towards his navel. “Why don’t you join me, and we’ll show GD real fun together?” 

There is nothing Cassian would like to see less, and his finger hovers on the mouse, threatening to click away. It’s still there, half a millimeter from the button, when Tamlin is naked and turning Lucien over, bending him over the back of his chair and forcing his head down into the cushions, cutting of his air. He doesn’t even click when Tamlin starts thrusting into him, grunting and swearing and calling Lucien a dirty fag. Not even as it becomes abundantly apparent that he is not playing, not acting out a scene, but cursing and clawing straight out of some dark pit in his heart.

Lucien comes twice into the back of the chair before Tamlin releases within him. As he does so, he looks over at the camera, and smirks. Mine. 

At last Cassian is free. He shuts off the laptop completely, staring at the empty screen. 

This is the last time. He promises himself. He can’t get involved in this, can’t bare witness to this shit and do nothing whilst calling himself the man’s friend. And he tells himself that even when he logs back onto the cam site the next night, tell himself he’s browsing for other boys and girls to fall into. Yet still he clicks on ‘favourites’, and still he goes into Foxy Boi’s general chat room. 

  
“Well hi there,” Lucien says with a smile and black eye. And he’s sucked in for another evening.


End file.
